Remote patient monitoring (RPM), also called telehealth or telemonitoring, is a growing trend in modern health care with a multi-billion dollar market. This is useful for monitoring in many chronic diseases, including cardiovascular health, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, and related ailments, and sleep-related ailments such as insomnia or sleep apnea.
Remote patient monitoring has an important role in the management of patients at-risk for complications of cardiovascular disease.
There is an unmet need for convenient 24-hour physiological monitoring. Existing pulse oximeters and heart rate sensors typically cost more than about $80 and are in the form of chest straps, cuffs, palm-sized ambulatory sensors, or large modules clipped to the end of a finger as illustrated in FIG. 3A. Such form factors of the current technology are not well suited for 24-hour monitoring because it is expensive and/or uncomfortable to the patient. 24-hour monitoring is important because managing the subtle symptoms of chronic disease (such as heart disease, chronic fatigues syndrome, depression, etc.) relies on the ability to continuously monitor physiological parameters without placing burden to the patient. The large size, however, causes patient discomfort or limits mobility. While costs are moderate (more than about $100), it is still too expensive to be ubiquitously accepted by health care providers. Current devices also consume too much power to provide 24 hour operation.